“Winged” stem and stern in Southeast Asian lashed-lug vessels: from ethnography to archaeology

“Winged” stem and stern in Southeast Asian lashed-lug vessels: from ethnography to archaeology

So-called “winged” bows were among the first boat characteristics that were used to identify the expansion of
shipping technologies of the Austronesian speaking people across both the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Pioneers
Haddon and Hornell were the first to recognize that small outrigger dugouts observed in East Africa shared a
“winged” stem (and stern) construction with comparable boats from Insular Southeast Asia. Starting with the
Butuan archaeological excavations in the 1980s, a number of much larger plank-built vessels of the first and second
millennia CE have been brought to light in Southeast Asian waters that clearly belong to this “winged” technical
tradition. They all belong to the lashed-lug shipbuilding tradition which is specific to Southeast Asia. This
presentation will bring together the presently available evidence on such matters, with detailed observations, and a
first attempt at building up a typology of such vessels.

Pierre-Yves Manguin

The Museum of Underwater Archaeology

2023

English

Mangiun, Pierre-Yves. 2023. “‘Winged’ stem and stern in Southeast Asian lashed-lug vessels: from ethnography to archaeology.” Edited by Jennifer Craig, Jay Mok, T. Kurt Knoerl, Ligaya Lacsina, Agni Mochtar, and Pierre-Yves Manguin. In Proceedings of Fifth Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage: Gwangju, The Republic of Korea, November 13-18 2023. The Museum of Underwater Archaeology.URL: https://apconf.omeka.net/exhibits/show/apconfproceedings/item/1940